Display manufacturers have been showing us a variety of flexible and foldable screens for years now, and they’re always just around the corner. One of the reasons that we’ve never managed to turn that corner is that there’s not a good way to attach a battery to a screen that folds. Perhaps a new flexible battery developed at the Korean Advanced Institute Of Science And Technology will finally make flexible devices a reality.

The cells used to power all your electronic gadgets are rather heavy and tend to explode or leak acid when folded in half. The super-thin battery created at the Korean Advanced Institute is just a proof of concept, but researchers were able to demonstrate that it outputs a constant voltage while being flexed, folded, and twisted. Even when it is folded completely in half, it is still able to power a blue LED without interruption.

The flexible battery is based on lithium-ion technology; the same as the batteries in most portable devices. However, this one was printed on a thin film, which could be affixed to a flexible display. As tends to be the case with such things, the researchers were not prepared to discuss any commercial applications. Power storage capacities are currently unknown, but I’d wager it would be much lower than conventional lithium-ion cells.

We’ve all been disappointed time and time again by promises of the next big leap in battery technology. This one does at least seem more plausible, and it would make a long time impractical tradeshow demo (flexible screens) a real possibility.